


First Virtue

by SailorFish



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Angst, Gen, Light spoilers for Foxglove Summer, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, So's Peter, Spoilers for Broken Homes, Thomas is having a crummy day, WW2!Thomas, this is so self-indulgent jeez
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-26 18:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12563372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorFish/pseuds/SailorFish
Summary: Nicky doesn’t want a stupid police officer to bring the bad guys to justice, she wants a soldier. Nicky is upset, Peter is exhausted, for Oberon it’s Tuesday. And Nightingale, of course, is a soldier.Title comes from the quote,The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Idek, I listened to the first four books in a row last week and all I want for Christmas is as much WW2!Nightingale meets 2010s!Peter fic as possible lol. The setting is post-Foxglove Summer, but I started writing in the middle of reading it so not *too* many specifics about that. New to the fandom so hi, and my sincere apologies if something is terribly off.

“You _promised!_ ”

The childish shriek echoed through the woods and I picked up my pace. Whoever Nicky was yelling at - and I had a pretty good idea who she was yelling at - didn’t respond, or responded too quietly for me to hear. That was a bit worrying. It was a bit worrying that Nightingale had found her first, period.

Nicky wasn’t handling Sky’s death well. It was all well and good to say that she had eternity ahead of her and would learn to live with grief eventually, but right now she was a little girl and very upset. She’d taken to having tantrums and running off alone. Not that I could blame her; after everything in Skygarden, if I’d thought I could get away with that behaviour in my 20s, I’d have seriously considered following her example.

As it was, we had been contacted by Oberon, who’d _somehow_ known we were investigating a former Little Crocodile in East Finchley (dead end, literally - he’d died three years ago in his sleep), to help find her and round her up. Seeing as how we were in the area and all.

Not that there’s much that can harm a goddess in Highgate Wood. It had been part of the huge, ancient Forest of Middlesex up to a thousand years ago, but deforestation had started in the thirteenth century and left it a pleasant enough park, if you like that sort of thing. If there’d been any magical being who wanted humans and human-shaped river goddesses to pay for the tree-cutting, we’d probably have heard from them already.

Still, it was getting dark and Oberon presumably wanted to get back to whatever he did when he wasn’t babysitting child goddesses sometime before midnight. Me and Nightingale, meanwhile, were part of The Great Family-Friendly Metropolitan Police (Because We _Care_ ), and were thus always keen to reunite lost children with their guardians. Even when the lost child in question was the scariest thing in a 10-mile radius.

But I’d secretly hoped that me or Oberon would have found her first. The last time they’d met, Nicky had not been happy with Nightingale. I doubted she’d completely got over it within a few months. Judging by Father Thames’ example, genii locorum had a tendency to get stuck at Stage Two: Anger.

Now that I was closer, I could hear Nightingale calmly explaining that we’d put those responsible for Sky’s death in jail, and that the justice system had blablabla.

 _Oh no_ , I thought. _He’s trying to rationalise with her._

Nightingale had told me that he’d been the youngest in his family, and presumably posh boarding schools, war, and Indiana Jones escapades didn’t train you well for dealing with small children. I, as an only child with enough younger cousins to fill up half a moderately sized school, knew that there were multiple tactics you could use to defuse a tantrum situation: from the healthy slap my mum had often threatened me with, to distraction via bribery with candy. Rationalisation wasn’t one of them.

“But they’re not the ones who _really_ did it,” interrupted Nicky, either showing a more sophisticated grasp of the Nuremberg Defense than I’d expected of a 6 year old, or just wanting to be contrary. “You haven’t found their boss. You haven’t made him _pay_ for killing my friend!”

“Peter and I are attempting our best to rectify - ah, to fix - that,” said my governor. “As I promised, we will find him and bring him to justice as quickly as possible.”

“So you’re going to kill him soon?”

There was a little too much hopefulness in that childish voice, and it made me feel a bit sick. Lesley’s words rang in my ears. I remembered Dr. Walid’s report about the man who drowned on dry land.

Nightingale hesitated in his reply. I was very aware that until recently, he wouldn’t have. Non-magical lackeys were one thing. Them he was more than happy to arrest. With rogue magical practitioners though, it was just easier to go in, metaphorical guns blazing and death squad with literal guns as back-up. But the old Folly was learning new tricks - or rather, I could admit with a touch of pride, _I_ was teaching it new tricks - nowadays. We were trying to stay off the path of indiscriminate carnage. Of course, that’s not always the response the victims’ friends and family want to hear from the long arm of the law.

“No,” Nightingale said finally. “As police officers - ”

But Nicky had heard enough.

I burst out of the trees and into their meadow just as her face screwed up tight and her little hands balled into fists. I glanced over at Nightingale quickly. He didn’t look quite as confident and smooth as he’d sounded. He was facing the goddess head on, but he stood a little hunched and his fingers were clenched bone-white around his cane. His own gaze flickered briefly to me and he gave me a very slight nod, before he turned once more to fully weather the goddess’ fury. Nicky took in a huge breath.

“ _I_ _don’t want a police officer!_ ” she howled. “ _You promised! You promised as a soldier! Life for life, blood for blood! I don’t want a police officer, I want a_ ** _soldier_** _!!”_

A wave of magic crashed over me so hard I almost staggered back out of the clearing. It was a pure tidal wave of wrath, and loss, and _blood_ , and I thought for a moment I would drown to death on dry land too, drown in a magic river of red. It felt every bit as bad as when Nightingale had disarmed that demon trap in Soho, and I wasn’t halfway across London this time either.

Everything felt muffled, as though I’d gone swimming and my ears were full of water. I resisted the urge to tilt my head and bang on my temple until a stream of water poured out of them, like a Looney Toons character. Luckily, it gradually cleared up on its own.

When I finally looked up, I saw that Nicky was swaying just a bit. She didn’t look angry anymore. Instead, she looked a little guilty, and a little panicky, and extremely uncertain about whether she should be looking guilty and panicky at all. Whatever it was she’d done had obviously not affected me, so I turned my own slightly panicky face to Nightingale.

He wasn’t flopping on the floor, gasping for air, which was a relief. Instead, he was frowning, and his eyes were closed. Before I could ask him if he was alright, his eyes shot back open. He pulled himself up straight. Very straight. Not that Nightingale usually had rolled shoulders or anything, but this was the posture I recognised from when he had been upbraided by Seawoll or was about to face down something terrifying. I automatically sidled over closer to Nicky, and chanced a brief glance over my shoulder for extra propriety. There was nothing but trees, of course.

I looked back at Nightingale, who was staring at me and Nicky with an odd expression on his face. His eyes raked over us, and alarm, dismay, and pity flitted over his face one after another.

Alarm, I got. Even dismay made sense - I myself was a bit dismayed at the prospect of figuring out how to properly deal with a child goddess who’d just attacked an officer of the law, even if we were both unharmed. But _pity?_

Then, to my other utter surprise, he dropped his cane, put his hands in the air, and gave us an encouraging smile.

“ _Bitte haben Sie keine Angst!_ ” said Nightingale. “ _Ich bin ein britischer Offizier. Seid ihr aus einem KZ geflüchtet? Werdet ihr verfolgt? Leider kann ich euch nicht zu, ah, zur Sicherheit begleiten. Aber ich habe eine Karte von der Gegend und ein bisschen Essen für Ihre Tochter._ ”

All of that was, of course, lost on me. All I got was that it was German, and maybe _British officer_. Sorry, not everyone has a classical education and can speak twenty languages. I gaped at him, then shot a glance at Nicky to see how she was taking this. She seemed to have forgotten her tantrum altogether for the moment, which was good news (distraction - it works!). Unfortunately, she was not one of those useful goddesses who understands all tongues spoken by mortal man. She was as puzzled as I was.

Nightingale cursed softly under his breath - when I think back, _this_ was the moment when I truly understood something was wrong; I couldn’t remember a single time I’d heard him swear before - and switched from German to a Slavic language. I vaguely recognised it from my mum’s business acquaintances, also known as a good third of the cleaning staff in the Greater London area. Polish, I’d wager. (Though not a lot of money.) At our blank looks, he switched to French, then, a bit desperately, to another language which sounded a lot like German. With each switch he obviously struggled more when putting the sentences together, and grew more frustrated at our continued incomprehension. But he kept his smile up all the same.

I interrupted him before he could switch to something like Ancient Aramaic and truly frighten me.

“Sir, I don’t understand what you’re saying,” I said, because it seemed the sort of thing you said when your governor apparently forgot all knowledge of English after being hit by a magical attack.

Nightingale startled and lowered his hands.

“An Englishman!” he breathed. That’s when the goosebumps _really_ started crawling. He hadn’t forgotten English - he’d forgotten _I_ could speak English. “But I’m sure we would have heard…”

He frowned, then visibly reassessed us.

“I’m Captain Thomas Nightingale, of the 2nd Parachute Battalion,” he said. If he was lying - and he could very well have been; I had no idea where he'd officially been assigned - he was doing it very smoothly. “What’s your name, soldier? Which unit are you attached to?”

“I, uh… I, sorry, _what?_ ”

Not my best efforts, I know.

“I’m not about to shoot you for desertion,” snapped Nightingale. “Not when it was to rescue a young girl. Foolish, but brave. How far are the others from here? I’ll accompany you and talk to your CO on your behalf, if I can, but we have to go _now_. What unit are you in?”

By this point, I had basically figured it out. I am a detective after all (or would be, if I passed my exam). I’m also a _magical_ almost-detective, which means sudden amnesia of the past seventy-odd years frightened me, but didn’t leave me saying, _This simply cannot be happening, what is going on?!_ It _was_ happening, and what was going on was that Nicky had wished for a soldier. She’d got one.

Of course, the problem was that knowing what was happening didn’t mean I knew what to do about it. I opened my mouth, not actually sure whether I was about to go with a placating lie or the honest truth.

Nicky cut in first though.

“I don’t need rescuing by Peter!” she said. She sounded genuinely indignant, albeit a shade quieter than normal. I doubted she’d followed what was happening, and she looked altogether exhausted, but she’d certainly understood that bit.

I nearly groaned out loud as bewilderment widened Nightingale’s eyes, and he shifted to a battle-ready stance. We’d clearly been downgraded again. First it had been _Poor victims of the Third Reich, treat with care_ , then _Idiot IC3 soldier loses head upon seeing young female IC3 victim and deserts army to rescue her_. Now it was _Why the fuck are two black Brits, wearing weird-ass clothing, one of who is a child, traipsing through the Black Forest?_

“Who are you?” said Nightingale harshly.

And again, I was interrupted before I could answer.

“Peter is your apprentice, Nightingale,” Oberon said in his calm way as he strode into the clearing next to Nicky.

A part of me relaxed: now, the adults were here. A part of me tensed more: Oberon’s gaudy sword was still on his hip and I didn’t miss how Nightingale’s eyes narrowed further at the sight of it. The final part of me giggled hysterically: this was probably more black people than 1940s Nightingale saw in a month.

I’m pretty sure the only reason he didn’t just blast us all with a fireball and leave it to God and the Germans to sort us out was that no self-respecting SS officer would ever have come up with such a moronic lie. An incredulous laugh bubbled to his lips as he glanced between me and Oberon.

As his assessing, skeptical gaze swept me over head to toe, I stiffened. Nightingale - 2010s Nightingale that is - often told me it was a different time back then, and I can't deny that. But there’s a huge difference between feeling sorry for someone you think’s a victim of Nazis and actually thinking of them as an equal. I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d be able to look my governor in the eyes quite the same way if I had to carry the certain knowledge, in the back of my mind, that seventy years ago he would have treated me like dirt.

Luckily, I didn’t have to find out. Nightingale proved to be genuinely decent. All he said was, “This is ridiculous, I don’t have an apprentice. I don’t even know this man.”

“But you know _me_ ,” said Oberon.

That was news to both me and Nicky. Oberon had to give us pointed stares to stop us from asking the hundreds of questions this raised. Nightingale looked considering, though he didn’t relax.

“I do remember you,” he said slowly. “Late twenties, Newcastle? Alberich - no, Oberon?”

“Yes.”

Oberon must have made an impression, if Nightingale remembered him over a decade later. Or - I revised my earlier statement: maybe this was more black people than 1940s Nightingale saw in a _year_.

“And the girl?”

It had been a good impression too: Nightingale was wary and still frowning, but he looked less ready to incinerate us all if we breathed wrong.

“Goddess of a young river,” said Oberon.

Nightingale accepted that too. Now that he was looking for it, he could probably sense that she was a genius loci. He inclined his head to her, and she nodded back silently. Running away, then her tantrum, then the huge wave of magic, and finally the sheer bizarrity of Nightingale The Soldier had clearly taken its toll on her. Noticing that, Oberon settled, cross-legged, onto the ground, and pulled her into his lap. She promptly turned her head into his shoulder and fell sleep. Clever. Oberon was clearly much less of a threat now - doubly clever.

That just left me.

“So: a fae, a goddess, and my supposed apprentice. Is this some kind of jest, Oberon?” said Nightingale. “I’ve never seen… Peter before, and there’s no time to train an apprentice during the war.”

“It’s not a trick, sir,” I finally spoke up. I’d been thinking about how to convince him. “And I can prove it. You can read my signare, can’t you? You told me you could see who trained me based on that.”

“Did I also teach you not to be fool enough to let an unknown wizard cast an unknown spell?”

Unless we fought in, say, Halo, any duel between me and Nightingale would end with me being crushed like a bug. It was a bit flattering to hear him imply otherwise. Though of course it wasn’t really my governor saying that, just a stranger borrowing his voice and face.

“I’ll just be casting a werelight,” I said meekly. “And you can, ah…”

I trailed off. I wasn’t quite sure how to say,  _You can threaten me with Oberon’s stupid sword, if it makes you feel better, because throat-cutting is still faster than formae and I’m pretty sure the only way you’ll agree to this is if there’s cold iron touching my neck._ It wasn’t the sort of thing you usually had to say to your boss-slash-mentor. _This_ is the sort of trust exercises companies should really be doing. Do you trust your boss with seventy years worth of amnesia to not slit your throat with a sabre? Alternatively, after seventy years worth of amnesia do you trust your employee not to fireball you? If you’re both alive after an hour, congratulations, you have a fantastic office environment!

Because I was pretty sure no version Nightingale knew what trust exercises were, I nodded awkwardly towards the sword instead. Luckily, both he and Oberon got the gist.

Oberon shifted Nicky as he drew the sword, then passed it to Nightingale hilt first. He looked utterly calm, the bastard. Maybe in the eighteenth century offering someone to possibly chop your head off had been all the rage. Meanwhile I think my crazy idea made Nightingale even more wary of me, and I couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t enough that an unknown black man with a working class accent was claiming to be his apprentice, oh no, he had to be an idiot as well. Nightingale gripped the sword with terrifying ease.

I took a deep breath and bared my neck.

As the cool metal touched my skin, I realised for the first time what so many of the animal protagonists in my children’s books must have gone through. I’m sorry if I ever doubted you, Hazel-rah. Baring your neck and feeling a claw against it isn’t fun.

I cast the most basic, least flashy - let alone explosive - _Lux_ I knew how.

It was enough.

The werelight reflected oddly in Nightingale’s eyes. I put it out and the breath he drew in was a sharp hiss. The swordtip wavered terrifyingly for a moment. I licked my suddenly very dry lips. But he must have had the same thought; the sword withdrew immediately, then clattered down next to the cane.

“Who - who are you?” he said.

“I’m Peter Grant, sir. Your apprentice.”


	2. Chapter 2

This time, Nightingale believed me.

Not that he had a choice, really. You can lie to a lie detector - pretty easily, actually, don’t believe the TV shows on that one. You can’t lie about your magic. I was beginning to be able to recognise the abrupt twist of strength and meticulous precision of Nightingale’s signare, and although my own magic was probably far sloppier, there was still something of his that Nightingale recognised within me.

“How long have I been your Master?” he asked. His face had smoothed itself and stilled itself, until he looked like a statue, unwarmed by the last rays of sunlight.

Now I wasn’t fond of _master_ at the best of times, and this was certainly not the best of times. Not when Oberon, who’d actually had a master, not the smarmy-British-boarding-school-wizard type but the type who’d left crisscrossing 300 year old scars, was sitting next to me. Also not when talking to a Nightingale from the 1940s - back when the Empire had still been going strong and only a scant hundred years after the last of the abolition acts had been signed. That wasn’t ancient enough history in my books.

But his expression was giving me the urge to edge behind Oberon, so I just said, “You’ve been my _teacher_ for a little over a year now.”

It was good that I hadn’t pressed the issue because Nightingale’s face went smoother still, which I hadn’t known was possible, and he immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion.

“A little over a year,” he repeated blankly. “Why can’t I remember..? Was I to - that is, have I been… compromised?”

It took me a few seconds to decipher that he was asking if he’d lost his memory from being captured and then tortured as a POW.

“ _No!_ ” I yelped. “No, it’s not got anything to do with the Nazis.”

The forcefulness of my denial seemed to convince him. But I hesitated over how to continue. The saying goes that you have to rip the band-aid off quickly. I was trying to remember if my mandatory first-aid training courses had agreed with that bit of medical advice or not.

Oberon clearly didn’t suffer from such dilemmas.

“The war has been over for almost seventy years,” he said. “It’s 2013 and we’re standing in London, England.” As an afterthought he added, “The Allies won.”

Nightingale took that as well as he could have. Which is to say, he clearly didn’t believe us, but he also didn’t turn on his heel and walk away, shaking his head fondly at all the loons in the world these days.

“And I’ve travelled through time from 1944, taught Mr. Grant magic for over a year, and then suddenly lost all memory of both?” he said drily. “Or does Mr. Grant hail from the 40s as well?”

“Well, no, sir. No time travel,” I said. I bloody well hoped not anyway. “I think you’re under some kind of glamour. It’s making you believe you’re still a soldier in World War II, and not remember that you’re now a DCI - uh, a police detective.”

That was my working hypothesis. It was the most optimistic one I had, for two reasons. One, it fit with the powers we knew the Rivers had, though a cranked-up-to-eleven version if it could knock out Nightingale, which meant we weren’t dealing with something completely foreign. Two, it wasn’t permanent and if I got Nightingale away from Nicky it would eventually wear off. The most pessimistic theory I had was that it actually _was_ time travel, but I was going to leave that one for tomorrow morning.

(There was one easy way to check for sure of course: ask Nightingale to count the number of bullet holes he had. But I thought it best to avoid it until it wouldn’t involve a police officer stripping in front of a minor.)

“What did I do to deserve such a gift?” Nightingale asked, humouring us.

“You refused to execute a criminal,” said Oberon.

Nightingale looked genuinely taken aback. No wonder. His grey eyes were steely. For all that his back was straight enough for my mum to use him as an ironing board, he kept his weight carefully balanced - ready to leap into action. And he certainly hadn’t hesitated at leaving a sword at my neck. For this Nightingale, killing people may have been easier than _not_ killing them.

Hell, for all I knew, it was still easier for our Nightingale too. (But I hoped not.)

“And if I murder this man, the situation will be resolved?” he asked. Not necessarily as though he was building a plan, really, just sort of testing the idea out.

I shook my head emphatically.

We’d been making progress re the Folly’s ethics and I didn’t want to start at square zero again. Also, when (I resolutely didn’t think _if_ ) the glamour wore off, I didn’t want my governor to wake up with blood on his hands, courtesy of a River. Apart from the effect it would have on Nightingale’s conscience, the political implications would be terrifying.

“No. Nicky is still a child and understands little,” Oberon rumbled, peering deep into Nightingale’s eyes. “You will remember your oath to me, soldier. But this is not how I expect it to be kept.”

To that, Nightingale actually saluted, razor-sharp and precise.

“Look, sir,” I said. “It’s sort of a moot point. The important thing is that you’re in London and we’re definitely not at war. I _think_ the glamour should wear off by tomorrow, in which case going into all the details isn’t necessary because you’ll remember it all anyway. And if it doesn’t wear off, then we’re going to need a much more thorough explanation than I can give while standing in the middle of a suburban forest.”

I felt absurdly like adding, _Do you trust me?_ But the only Disney movie this Nightingale could know was Snow White.

It worked even without Disney references. It wouldn’t have on me, and maybe wouldn’t have even on our Nightingale, who was a police officer too and had been alone since Ettersberg. See, police are paid to be suspicious bastards, but soldiers have to trust their comrades-in-arms with their lives. Nightingale agreed to be driven to the Folly to try  _sleeping it off_.

We said our goodbyes to Oberon and the still sleeping Nicky. Another bit of Community Outreach accomplished; we were certainly exceeding our non-existent quotas.

There was a wrinkle between Nightingale’s brows as we strode to the car. My governor generally preferred the _what_ and _who_ over the _how_ and _why_ , but even for him, this much mystery was no doubt stressful. (For my part, I was guiltily enjoying being on the side of the cryptic bastards for once.) At the Jag, we had a bit of fumbling, as he had to pass me the car keys from his jacket pocket - advanced driving course or not, I was a better choice than someone living a good decade before the Jaguar Mark 2 had even appeared on the market - and then some more fumbling when I had to explain seatbelts to him.

If I started realising something was wrong after hearing Nightingale curse, Nightingale started realising we were telling the truth after seeing the Jag.

Then he saw the newer cars, and buildings, and people.

He spent the first ten minutes of the ride silent, eyes open slightly too wide. I shot him covert glances as we turned onto Camden High Street and wondered what was traumatising him the most: the motorbikes weaving between the various cars, the brightly lit fast food signs, or the people.

With the sun setting, the crowds of tourists streaming towards the Camden Markets was slowly being replaced by young people looking for a good night out. It was probably more variation in humans than he’d ever seen in his life: people of all different ethnicities, hair colours that could only have come out of a bottle, a multitude of piercings and tattoos. With how many women were showing off their long legs in tight jeans or short skirts, I was surprised he wasn’t blushing.

I suddenly sort of hoped we’d get a case tonight. Nightingale was keeping the stiffest of upper lips. I wanted to know if it’d wobble at meeting Miriam Stephanopoulos, terrifying lesbian, or Sahra Guleed, Muslim ninja. Or maybe nothing could shock him after Peter Grant, apprentice at large.

We stopped to let a young woman wearing a floral hijab and one of those bright yellow raincoats cross the street. She was swearing very colourfully into her phone, angry that so-and-so had cheated on her friend such-and-such, loud enough for us to hear even with the windows closed. Nightingale still didn’t say anything, but I felt obliged to defend the girl before he thought us millennials were as deranged as the Daily Mail likes to paint us.

“She’s talking to a friend over the telephone,” I offered. “We can carry them around nowadays, so we’re always connected.”

“Ingenious,” murmured Nightingale. I silently crowed in delight. So, 1940s Nightingale recognised how bloody useful they were, even if our Nightingale stubbornly attempted to avoid them. Score one for technology.

Then he hesitated, and quietly said, “Mr. Grant, if I’m really one hundred and thirteen years old, why do I not look it?”

That was a tricky one.

“Uh, to be honest, we’re not sure. As far as I know, you aged normally ‘till the 70s, then… stopped and started aging backwards instead. When I asked, you reminded me about gift horses and mouths.”

His lips quirked up into a sudden smile.

“That does sound like me,” he allowed. “And what of the others? Is there a whole cabal of centenarian wizards prowling London?”

I couldn’t hide my wince. He saw it. After that, he didn’t need me to say anything, but I did anyway.

“No, sir. I’m sorry, you’re the only one.”

“I see.”

We turned off Bedford Way to park in silence.

As we were two British blokes, and one of us was from the Victorian Era, I couldn’t exactly reach over and give him a manly hug while he cried on my shoulder that everyone he knew was suddenly dead.

Instead I said, “I suppose London’s changed a lot since your time.”

“Yes,” said Nightingale. “We weren’t so far removed from Command that we didn’t receive word about the bombings, of course. Was the news, ah, exaggerated by the time it reached our ears or has London been rebuilt?”

Right, I’d walked into that one. _In his time_ , near twenty thousand tonnage of bombs had just been dropped on the city.

“I’m afraid it’s the latter, sir,” I said. “We spent a lot of the 50s and 60s rebuilding.”

“I see,” he said again. Then he briskly got out of the car.

I didn’t want us to get a case anymore. I just wanted to bundle my governor off to bed as quickly as possible, then hope like hell that tomorrow it’d all be over.

It was now dark enough that the only people on our small street were us and a middle-aged white woman walking a collier puppy. She was wearing sweatpants and an enormous knitted jumper, so at least she wasn’t scandalising Nightingale with cleavage and legs. A few streets away, the city was bustling with early revelry, but this cul-de-sac was quiet. Somewhere up above came the familiar roar of a helicopter. Police, probably, and I idly reached for my phone to make sure it had nothing to do with us.

Suddenly, something slammed into me.

My phone went flying. So did I. My assailant hurled us behind a parked car. We both landed heavily, him on top of me, and rolled together. The dog walker screamed. Was it Lesley? - But no, the attacker was too large. Another one of the Faceless Man’s goons? Had somebody discovered Nightingale was out of commission already?! I couldn’t tell up from down. I couldn’t concentrate on the formae enough to blast the bastard.

We ended up with me on the bottom and him pinning me with arm and knee. I struggled against him, wheezing, pain clouding my sight.

“Stay _down_ , Grant, you fool,” came Nightingale’s voice from right on top of me.

My eyes focused.

Nightingale was kneeling over me protectively, one hand keeping my shoulders down while the other gripped his cane. His eyes were scanning the sky.

_Like a lion over its children._

“Wait, sir!” I managed. “It’s not a German - ”

He didn’t hear me; he was acting on autopilot and adrenaline. We spotted the helicopter at the same time and I could feel him gathering the formae in his mind. _It was so high up, could he really..?_ But this was Thomas ‘One Fireball, One Tiger Tank’ Nightingale in his prime. He probably ate helicopters for breakfast.

So I did the first thing I thought of. It’s what they always do in Hollywood war movies. I grabbed the lapels of his expensive coat and yanked him down until I could yell in his ear.

“STAND DOWN, CAPTAIN NIGHTINGALE! The war is over! These are friendlies!”

For a second, I was fully certain he was going to blast me instead. I braced myself - no time for a shield. Then his eyes cleared, and he jerked violently away from me. He scrambled a full metre back while I propped myself up. I found my phone next to my left knee and scooped it up.

We both sat on the pavement, staring at each other warily and panting.

“Interrupting me like that was extremely dangerous, Mr. Grant,” said Nightingale finally. “I would have thought I’d have taught you that.”

“More dangerous to me than to the helicopter?”

Nightingale looked away.

Something inside me squirmed. All this was getting too intimate. I had the vague notion that I was seeing my governor more exposed than if he had stripped off his bespoke suit and danced stark bollock naked in the street. I stood up abruptly, and offered a hand to him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the dog walker was still watching us from a safe distance. She shifted from foot to foot and her hands hovered uncertainly over her phone. She was clearly trying to decide what to say to 999. On the one hand, from her perspective, two friends had been peacefully walking along the street before one had gone crazy and attacked the other. On the other, in my experience, middle-aged white women view a white 40 year old man rugby tackling a black man in his 20s as inherently less suspicious than the other way around. She met my eyes nervously, unsure which of us was the dangerous one.

 _Iraq_ , I mouthed at her as I pulled Nightingale up.

Her face cleared, then contorted into a sad, sympathetic smile. Member of the public thus soothed, we continued to the Folly in silence.

At the doorstep Nightingale hesitated. He squared his shoulders and turned to me.

“How would you like me to proceed?” he asked quietly.

“Sorry, sir?”

“With the others. Should I report to the CO - ah, the… Chief Inspector? Or should we leave it until tomorrow in the event that your theory proves correct?”

I’m not sure what expression I had on my face but it caused him to carry on, very stiffly.

“I am aware that I am not at my best, Mr. Grant, but you need not treat me like a child. I understand very well that our current compatriots at the Folly are not the ones I remember - even young Lieutenant Oswald would be pushing ninety by now,” he added to himself. “That _is_ why I’m asking for _your_ recommendation on whether we should lie.”

As far as I know, Nightingale has never lied to me. Avoided questions like an eel, yes. Told a direct lie, no. I wasn’t a therapist or a psychiatrist; I couldn’t rely on in-depth knowledge of trauma or the standard procedures when dealing with war vets. All I could go on was the relationship me and Nightingale had built, and that didn’t involve lies. So I didn’t say, _Oh, the others? No worries, they all happen to be in Taiwan on a secret mission, very hush-hush, but they send their regards._

Instead I said, “There are no others. We’re the only Newtonian wizards left, sir. It’s just us and Molly.”

For a moment, there was no reaction.

Then Nightingale recoiled as if I’d burned him. I’d thought his expression had been terrible before. It turned out it had been merely bad. Now, he looked every inch of his hundred and thirteen years, every bloody and violent and miserable one of them.

There’d been a propaganda film from the 1940s that they’d shown us in history class. It was called _London can take it!_ It was about how the British could handle whatever Hitler threw at them, could _keep calm and carry on_ with a jaunty smile and an even jauntier two-finger salute. Nightingale had managed to make the British World War 2 propaganda proud while I told him that he had seventy years worth of amnesia, that his city had been thoroughly wrecked while he was at the front, and that most of his friends were dead. He had finally reached the limit of what he could take.

Without a word, he turned and pushed open the Folly’s front door.

Molly was just gliding in from the direction of the laundry, a pile of neatly pressed linens in her arms. She regarded Nightingale with alarm.

“Oh, _Molly_ ,” he said and his voice cracked into a sob.

He stumbled towards her blindly.

I’d reached the limit of what I could take too. I turned on my heel and fled up the stairs to my room.


	3. Chapter 3

I didn’t particularly want to get out of bed the next morning. But it wasn’t the first time I’d felt that way since Lesley had tasered me in the back, so I got out anyway. I pulled on some jeans and a checkered shirt - 2010s Nightingale had got used to me occasionally eating breakfast in sweatpants and a DEATH OF RATS tee, but I wasn’t sure I was getting 2010s Nightingale.

Cautiously, I headed down the stairs.

Nightingale was waiting at the bottom, leaning with his back against the wall opposite. He was already dressed properly in slacks and a button down shirt, but that didn’t mean anything because Nightingale had never really got the hang of casual wear. His head was tipped back, his eyes were closed, and his arms were crossed over his chest. He must have heard me because he abruptly pushed off the wall to stand up straight.

Very straight.

My heart sank. This was his military pose, his blast-1000-kg-flying-machines-out-of-the-sky-before-you-can-blink pose. It didn’t belong in the 21st century.

Was it not a glamour after all? Or was it so much stronger than usual that it was semi-permanent? Permanent? I’d have to take him to Dr. Walid as soon as possible and get him checked out thoroughly, and wouldn’t _that_ be fun. And what were we going to do if it _was_ -

“Peter,” Nightingale greeted me.

Like a yo-yo, my heart leapt back up. I took the last few stairs two at a time.

I didn’t even try to contain the wide grin that split my face as I exclaimed, “Welcome back, Inspector!”

But he didn’t look anywhere near as pleased and relieved as I did.

“Peter,” he said carefully, and my lips tugged downwards. What the hell? “Before anything else, I’d like to offer you my most sincere apologies for everything I did that made you feel uncomfortable or hurt you. I - I’m sorry."

The apology was worded very conscientiously. I’d only ever seen that sort of thing posted by celebrities (or their PR people) on Twitter, when they’d been found cheating on their loving spouses or had decided that a bit of blackface would liven up this year’s Halloween. For a moment I had a mad image of Nightingale, under Molly’s guidance, trolling the Twitterverse for the conventional phrasing. His apology seemed more sincere than theirs usually was though: no explanations, clarifications, or justifications. Just remorse.

And he continued to hold himself stiffly at attention - as though he was waiting for a dressing down from _me_. I felt a few of the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

The thing is, I wasn’t quite sure what the apology was _for_.

“How much of last night do you remember?” I asked, equally carefully.

Nightingale gave a very tight shrug and admitted, “Not much at all, I’m afraid. It was like lying on the bottom of a lake and peering up through gallons of water. The prevailing emotion is… grief. But I remember the face you wore, when Oberon called you my apprentice and I laughed. And I remember tackling you and almost incinerating you with magic.” His lips tightened. “There is no excuse.”

I ran my fingers through my hair. It was getting long again.

“Well, I don’t know what non-PC thoughts were going through your mind,” I said slowly. “But you didn’t say or act on them. We’re fine, sir.”

“I _attacked_ you, Peter.”

“In your defence, you were trying to save me from a helicopter.”

Nightingale’s face was a very colourful picture.

“From a…”

“A helicopter, yes, sir. You thought it was an enemy, pushed me into cover, and then tried to blast it. I interrupted.”

 _Now_ he was blushing. Young women in miniskirts didn’t do it for him, but a reminder of his paranoia did. I watched, fascinated. I’m not sure I’d ever seen him blush before. The red spread all the way to the tips of his ears. White people - they have no luck.

“Interrupting me while I was casting a spell was extraordinarily dangerous,” he said hotly.

Personally, I think he was just trying to regain a modicum of dignity. But he’d stopped looking so pinched and formal. Maybe even slouched, just a little. It was a relief.

“Funny, that’s exactly what World-War-Two-Era-Nightingale said too,” I drawled. “What would we have done if I hadn’t stopped you and you’d blown it up?”

He frowned at me.

“I doubt I’d have _blown it up_ ,” he said. “Helicopters weren’t used much in the War - I’m not sure I’d seen one in person before the 50s. I would have had no idea where the engine was, so most likely I’d have gone for the rotor. If you had told me it was friendly _after_ I’d released the formae I may well have been able to land it safely.”

And that wasn’t disturbing at all, how casually he said that. _The_ Nightingale indeed. I gaped at him and blurted, before I could stop myself, “Wait, you can do that?!”

“Mmm, it would be risky, but there’s a few seventh order spells that could work. I’ve seen it performed successfully during the War twice, though I’ve never attempted it personally.”

Wolfenstein had nothing on Nightingale’s WWII adventures.

“I still think my way was better,” I said firmly. “Less chance of property damage, less chance of a heart attack from the Commissioner and apoplexy from Seawoll, and less chance of your brain melting.” From the way Nightingale winced at that last one, I was suddenly certain that that was how at least one of the practitioners who’d landed an aircraft had ended up. “ _Much_ better.”

“But infinitely more dangerous for you,” said Nightingale. “I have a _very_ strong memory of almost unleashing fire that was meant to  _melt steel_  on you, from less than a foot away.”

Fuck. Yeah, that would have roasted me good and proper. The only thing left would have been a neat pile of soot; Nightingale could have just about packed it up into three little baggies - one for my parents, one for Beverley, and one for Dr. Walid’s scientific delight.

Then Nightingale realised he was scolding me when he’d meant to be apologising, and shot me a weak, rueful smile.

“Alright, sir, if you can clear it with Dr. Walid, next time you decide to shoot down a helicopter I’ll grab the popcorn and watch the fireworks,” I said with exaggerated patience. He snorted.

And now we were all pretty relaxed and casual, and could pretend yesterday was just a minor farce, and go through to breakfast with Molly like usual.

Except Nightingale had waited for me, for who knows how long, to make sure that the first thing I heard that morning was an apology for anything he’d done to hurt me. Not an _I’m sorry, but you have to understand, Peter, it was a different time back then_ apology either. I think… His opinion had always mattered to me. He was my governor, my teacher, and possibly the bravest man I knew.

It was a bit terrifying to think my opinion mattered to him too.

This summer I’d got a crash course on _feeling my feelings_ from Beverley and her stick. Turnabout was fair play: it was time for me to step up and be Beverley. Or at least the stick. So instead of suggesting we steel ourselves for whatever recipe Molly was up to making after a very stressful night, I shoved my hands into my pockets and took a deep breath.

“You know, if we’re doing apologies, maybe I should go for one too,” I said. “I was pretty sure the glamour would wear off by morning. I could have pretended everyone was away, or sleeping, or whatever, instead of making you relive the immediate aftermath of Ettersberg again. And then abandoning you to it.”

It was hard to keep eye-contact with Nightingale while saying that, but he’d done it for me and he deserved the same courtesy. I got to see his eyebrows raise in alarm at the suggestion that I lie, and then snap together at the implication that I should really have stayed with him at his lowest.

“That’s… good of you, Peter. But you were correct in your initial assessment: you really shouldn’t be lying merely for my convenience. As for helping me, ah, manage things, I don’t think that’s _quite_ within your juris - ”

Which was all very polite and formal, but I didn’t think it was Nightingale speak for _please piss off_ , so I set my jaw and interrupted him.

“Oaths and obligations go both ways, sir.”

Nightingale blinked at me.

“That’s not really…” he began.

But something about the tone of my voice or the look on my face made him pause. Then he smiled a particular little half-smile of his, one I recognised rather well. It was the smile he generally got when I said something particularly idealistic that had nonetheless pleased him.

“I see,” he said instead.

It was a good thing we were alone. If Beverley had seen us right now, she’d be laughing to tears. So would Lesley. So would Molly. So, probably, would Guleed.

“So: I’m sorry, sir,” I concluded.

Then it got a bit awkward, and Nightingale fiddled with his cuffs while I tried to count how much change I had in my pocket with my fingers. Definitely laughing to tears.

Finally, Nightingale said, hesitantly, “You know, Peter, right after Ettersberg I didn’t exactly have time to mourn. I was still behind enemy lines, you see, and it was a, ah, a rather complicated way home.”

Which was a very nicely understated way of saying that he had been around 500 kilometres east of the German border in the middle of January and had had to escape on foot. It was also more than he’d ever told me before, and though I’d heard a bit of it from Oswald, I listened intently.  His voice was pitched low and he spoke slowly, as though from a great distance. His eyes were unfocused. I had no idea if he was seeing the intricate marble floor or German forests in the dead of winter.

“It was cold and miserable, of course, and we had almost no supplies. I was the only senior officer left. I had no time to think of anything but keeping some kind of order and bringing home anyone I could. Have you heard of the _Mühlviertler Hasenjagd?_ ” he asked abruptly and I shook my head. I didn’t want to speak in case it made him stop. Nightingale sighed.

“A _rabbit hunt_. I only heard about it after the War. Around the same time we were making our way across Germany, 500 Soviet POWs escaped a concentration camp in Austria. Eleven of them made it. The rest were rounded up and murdered by SS officers, the Wehrmacht, and local civilian volunteers. Their experiences were incomparable to ours, of course: they had been starved and tortured and had no weapons. But the word, _rabbit hunt_ , is - not unfitting.”

He halted and a shiver crawled up my spine. Oswald had said the survivors had been chased home by werewolves. Nightingale had been pretty firm about werewolves being extinct for a while now. But either way, he'd been hunted like an animal, like prey. What did it matter who it was by?

“And then we were home and there was so much else to do,” concluded Nightingale briskly, as though he felt he’d already said too much. “It wasn’t as though, _after_ Ettersberg, there was any one specific day when I realised it was all over.” _When I realised I was alone_ , he didn’t say. He cleared his throat and suddenly met my eyes again. An awkward smile hovered at the corners of his lips and eyes. “So I suppose I am… not unhappy that I got one night to grieve, while the pain was still fresh and a good friend was at my side.”

I didn't know what to say, how to say everything I wanted to. We hadn't got to that part of Beverley's lessons on feelings, I suppose. So I just said, quietly, "Thank you for telling me."

It seemed enough. We shared a quiet moment of stillness. It was nowhere near as uncomfortable as both of us had probably expected it to be. I don’t know what Nightingale was thinking about. I was thinking about snow, and duty, and being hunted.

I was also thinking about scheduling a strategy meeting with Dr. Walid, on the topic of how to wrangle the good captain into an appointment with a therapist. One who specialised in war trauma. Preferably someone with absolutely zero connections to the magical community, who was discreet, open-minded, and -

Then my stomach rumbled and Nightingale huffed in amusement and we finally went, together, to find breakfast.

(Which was cold omelette and cold tea for me, until Molly saw that me and Nightingale were alright again and relented enough to heat up the eggs. The tea stayed cold. I’d have to talk with her properly too, and make it up to her somehow. And then we’d have to deal with Nicky (though I assumed she was getting dealt with by her mum) - and after that with every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the magical community who probably thought they could glamour the Nightingale now. But all that would come after breakfast, during which I scrolled idly through my phone and Nightingale read a paper newspaper in his old-fashioned way.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter kicked my ass, hah. The Mühlviertler Hasenjagd really happened, you can read about it [on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BChlviertler_Hasenjagd).
> 
> If you have a few seconds, I'd really appreciate you leaving a comment! Thanks for reading!


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